THIRTY-THREE
COLT
I expect Blair to be on my case about how the appointment went when I pull up in the front yard after work, but she isn’t. She just looks up from where she’s reclining on the new porch swing with a book and greets me with a smile.
“How was work?” she asks, like she didn’t try to rip my dick off in front of all the other ranch hands this morning.
“Fine.” I kiss her on the forehead and lift her legs, sitting down on the swing and laying them back across my lap. “You’re not going to ask me how therapy was?”
She only shrugs as I pull back.
“We can talk about it if you want to, but I’m not gonna push you about it.” The change in her attitude from this morning is comical.
“Alright, yeah. I think…” I trail off with a sigh. “I think maybe we should hash all that out so there aren’t any more misunderstandings like this morning.”
Her face falls a little. “Colt, that was my fault. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”
“Hush.” I kiss her to make sure she listens. “You getting all possessive was fucking sexy, but I hate thinking you were upset before I set the record straight. There’s a few things you need to know, a few things it would be unfair to keep from you.”
She pulls back with worried eyes and I have déjà vu to a few weeks ago when I asked her if she felt trapped.
“Nothing bad,” I assure her again this time. “Just… stuff about my mental health.”
Her face softens, a small but encouraging smile taking over as she sets her book aside and then gives me her hands to hold.
I smile down at them as I take them in my own, the contrast between them jarring in the best way.
Hers, small and soft with long fingers and pretty paint on her nails, and mine, rough and dirty, dry and cracked.
“Do you remember at Chili’s when I told you that I thought the stars aligned for us and brought you into my life when I needed you most?”
I don’t look up at her when I ask, but I can see her head nod out of my periphery.
It takes longer than I want it to for me to get the rest of the words out, but she doesn’t rush me. She just squeezes my hands in support and I tug them, trying to give her the hint that I want her closer.
Whether she can read my mind or I’m just an expert hint-dropper, she slides closer and I wrap my arm around her back to help her the rest of the way until she’s sideways in my lap.
I hold her close. Maybe it’ll prevent her from running off once she realizes how fucked up I am.
How much pressure I’m putting on her every day without even meaning to. How quickly she’s become my world.
“The night I got your message, I was finishing my last pack of cigarettes on a rooftop in Fort Worth. I’d left my keys in my truck with a stack of letters to members of my family. I didn’t plan on being around when they received them,” I tell her quietly, still not looking at her.
I feel her stiffen when my words start to make sense to her and hold her tighter. I hadn’t said it outright, but I suppose I’d given enough context that she’d figured it out.
“Every night I got onto a roof, I asked the universe for a reason to stay. Usually, I could figure something out—my mom, Bailey, an event coming up… something along those lines. But those things weren’t really helping anymore.
My mind had gotten used to them and had started providing alternate excuses for why those things weren’t enough reason to stay. But you…”
I trail off and press my forehead against her shoulder. I should’ve showered first. I was dirty and sweaty from work and she deserved better than being squished in my arms like this, talking about something so fucking heavy while I stunk like a fucking pig.
“Gave you a reason,” she finishes, her voice barely a whisper as her hand reaches behind my head for the bill of my cap and tugs it off. Her fingers thread through my hair a minute later. “A little girl to live for.”
“Yeah.” My voice breaks and I hate when it does that. I hate sounding so weak, especially in front of the woman I’m desperate to be strong for. I lift my head, my watery eyes meeting hers. “And her mama.”
Blair opens her mouth to speak, but I interrupt her, terrified she’s going to try and derail me, to tell me she couldn’t possibly have been a reason as well.
“And her mama,” I say again with conviction.
“Blair, you’re the one who left that morning.
I had plans for when we woke up in bed together.
I tried to find you online, wanted more with you.
I wanted to take you out, wanted to see you again.
I’m not just here because you’re pregnant.
God, I wanted this from the moment I saw you. ”
Her lips twist wryly. “I wasn’t going to argue with you,” she says, thumbing away a tear on my cheek. “I was going to say how grateful I am that I reached out to you in time. That you’re still here.”
That breaks me, and I don’t exactly know why.
If my mom or Bailey or any of my other siblings knew how close they’d come to losing me, they’d likely say the same thing, but from Blair…
There was just something different about her.
She was the only person I could be my full self around, the only person I didn’t put on a mask for.
“I’m so fucking grateful too, baby.”
Blair smiles and pushes my hair back, pressing a kiss to my nose like I’m a fucking toddler, but it has me beaming up at her regardless.
“Go take a shower. You stink.”
My laughter booms, making a nearby squirrel scurry down from the bird feeder he and his comrades regularly stole food from and run up a nearby tree for cover. Mama’s barn cat, Sheriff, jumps out from behind the fence and tries to chase him, but moves on to bird watching when he isn’t successful.
I pat Blair’s hip and she uses my shoulder to push herself up off my lap, rubbing her stomach after.
“She’s getting so big,” she complains.
I lift her shirt up enough to press my lips against her bare skin. I don’t know that I’ll ever find myself in the pews of a church again, but being here on the front porch of our cabin with my pregnant eventual-wife feels as close to God as I’ve ever been.
“Alright, mama, I’m going. Get the next episode of our show ready for us?” I ask, slapping her ass for good measure as I go. Her squeal echoes around us, scaring the bird Sheriff had been watching as well.